EXECUTIVE WANTS TO CHARGE FOR WEB SPEED(The big boys want in on the action

[No Exit]

Executive Wants to Charge for Web Speed

Some Say Small Firms Could Be Shut Out of Market Championed by BellSouth Officer

By Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 1, 2005; D05



A senior telecommunications executive said yesterday that Internet service providers should be allowed to strike deals to give certain Web sites or services priority in reaching computer users, a controversial system that would significantly change how the Internet operates.

William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc.

Or, Smith said, his company should be allowed to charge a rival voice-over-Internet firm so that its service can operate with the same quality as BellSouth's offering. Network operators can identify the digital "packets" of content moving through their wires from sites and services and can block some or put others at the head of the stream. But Smith was quick to say that Internet service providers should not be able to block or discriminate against Web content or services by degrading their performance.

Rather, he said, a pay-for-performance marketplace should be allowed to develop on top of a baseline service level that all content providers would enjoy. "If I go to the airport, I can buy a coach standby ticket or a first-class ticket," Smith said. "In the shipping business, I can get two-day air or six-day ground."

(snip)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113002109_pf.html

It seems to happen to all grassroots or small establishments. It happened to diners/restaurants--the big boys wanted in, and now we have the same McDonald's at every interstate exit in the whole country. It happened to doctors/medicine--and now you can't just go to your doctor whom your family trusted and pay him actual money for his treatment and advice. It happened to television--people were content to plug in the TeeVee, attach an antenna to the roof, and watch those 3-5 channels, never paying a dime except their initial outlay for TV and antenna. It happened to the local energy companies--when I lived in New Orleans decades ago, you paid your power bill to New Orleans Public Service, but at the time of the hurricane, the power company there was the boutique-ish, wussified, very corporate and very distant, "Entergy".

NOW THE BIG BOYS WANT TO DO IT TO THE INTERNET. Currently, even little people have a voice on the interent. They start a blog. If the blog is good, other people read it. Mister William Smith says to hell with that--he says the rich should, as usual, have privileges that others don't have.

I say, FUCK Mister William L. Smith of BellSouth Corporation. We consumers really, really, need to go on "strike", or boycott, if the big fat greedy bastards take away our grassroots press on the internet and start running the little guys out of business (as greedy corporations are so good at doing.)

[dutchdemocrat]

1. No different than a Mob shakedown.

Pay or else.

[acmavm]

2. Things like this are why the rest of the world wants to take control of

the internet away from America. They could see this coming a long time ago. (This and the governments continual demand to be able to spy on everyone.)

[No Exit]

4. Yeah--if this happens, the internet news will go the way of the newspapers

where some big, distant, greedy corporation owns your "local" paper and also owns all the "local" papers from here to Bumfuk, Red-state-istan. And you won't be able to ever find out what's really going on. You'll only be able to read the same old house "news" and pro-big-guys "opinion", no matter where you go.

How would we know half the stuff we know if we were still depending on the corporate press?? This asshole Smith should be tarred and feathered and ridden out of the world on a rail.

[DS1]

3. Ouch

If they put a system in place that examines packet-requests, privacy is history. And what happens if say, Bank of America agrees to pay for faster service, does this mean that Bell South will be watching my bank transactions go by?

[Skinner]

5. Incredible bullshit.

I have to believe that no websites would want a system like this, not even the big ones. Who benefits from a bidding war between Yahoo and Google? Neither Yahoo nor Google would benefit; Internet users wouldn't benefit; only BellSouth benefits. Un-fucking-believable.

[No Exit]

6. That's how big corporate guys think.

"Yeah, we're the only ones who benefit... fine with me... we wanna own everything anyway."

If they ever succeed in doing this, co-ops need to be started from the get-go... a sort of unionization of smaller internet blogs and websites.